According to the ever-knowledgable Wikipedia, cinnamon is native to Southeast Asia and was unknown to Europeans until the 16th century. Poor Chaucer, poor Dante, they never knew what they were missing.

Not only is cinnamon tasty, tradition hold it has numerous health benefits. It may lower blood sugar in people with diabetes, reduce inflammation, and/or serve as an antioxidant and bacteria-fighter.

First, quickly: a recall has been issued in California for 2,200 pounds of Silva Sausage Co.’s Neto’s Mexican Chorizo. The chorizo contains undeclared wheat. Affected sausage was packed in 5-pound bags for industrial use — in other words, you won’t see this in the supermarket but be careful with chorizo when out and about in the Santa Clara area.

Second, and very NOT-recalled because there’s nothing wrong with it: Annie’s! We all love them, right? I mean, who doesn’t love gluten-free mac & cheese? They’re now poised to usher in a wave of natural, organic and even gluten-free…stocks.

Yup, you heard right. Annie’s has issued an IPO for 100 million dollars, says the Wall Street Journal. No IPO date has been set yet, according to New Hope 360, but when the stock appears on the New York Stock Exchange it will be with a fitting ticker symbol: BNNY.

Initial buzz is quite strong and it seems that Annie’s will have no trouble finding investors to subscribe, given their strong track record of profitability. The company currently has 125+ products (NB: not all are gluten-free) sold in over 25,000 retail locations in the US.

If you’d like to read more, this WSJ profile from 2005 has nice background on Annie’s (fun fact: Annie got her start inventing Smartfood popcorn). Or if you’re feeling governmental, New Hope 360 found the S-1 form Annie’s filed with the SEC.

Would you buy stock in Annie’s? What other gluten-free goodies would you invest in?

The article in question, published online on Dec 1, tells the story of a woman who got kicked out of a Muskogee Pizza Hut for bringing her celiac son’s McDonald’s food into the facility. The pair were on a field trip in town along with another parent and three additional children.

When lunchtime rolled around, the group of 6 chose Pizza Hut. However, because the two-year old son has celiac disease, the mom brought out some fries and a plain hamburger patty from McDonald’s for him to eat (UPDATE: as of December 2011, McDonald’s website includes wheat on the list of ingredients in their French Fries and states the only ingredient in the hamburger patties is beef. The Pizza Hut’s manager asked them to leave because of the food from outside; Pizza Hut’s corporate office could not be reached for comment.Continue reading “When is it OK to bring your own gluten-free food?”

I am very excited to be launching a little something that — for lack of a better phrase — we are referring to as Recipe Friday.

(Sorry folks, but December is a hectic month! Maybe in January I’ll find a good pun to use instead.)

This would be exciting in any case, but it’s double-exciting because the recipes are coming from two charming and talented gluten-free ladies: Iris at The Daily Dietribe and Brittany at Real Sustenance.

Wait, let’s go one more: it’s triple exciting, because today we’re sharing snickerdoodle recipes. No one can say for sure where the term snickerdoodle originated, but it’s come to mean a cookie with a cinnamon-sugar topping. There are endless varieties, but we think these three are sure-fire winners:Continue reading “Recipe Friday: Triple Snickerdoodles!”

For many people, medication can be the undoing of a gluten-free diet. Whether prescription or over-the-counter, many medicines are ambiguously labeled at best. To date, there are no regulations requiring manufacturers to disclose the sources of their ingredients for medications.

Happily, the NFCA has recently been awarded a grant to study the extent to which medication contains gluten. According to the press release, the project is called, “Gluten in Medication: Qualifying the extent of exposure to people with celiac disease and identifying a hidden and preventable cause of an adverse drug event,” which pretty much sums it all up.Continue reading “NFCA wins FDA grant to study gluten in medication”